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2012 Olympics could open at Hampden Park

THE 2012 Olympics will be launched in Glasgow if London’s bid to host the games is successful.

The first sporting action will be at Hampden Park where the football tournament will kick off. The size of the tournament means that it would have to start before the opening ceremony, planned for the new Wembley stadium.

During this year’s Olympics in Athens, football fixtures were played outside Greece. The opening game of the women’s tournament, between the hosts and America, was played in Heraklio in Crete, in front of 15,757 people.

Hampden Park, the national football stadium in Scotland, had been promised at least the quarter-final tie should the London 2012 bid succeed, but organisers are now willing to go further with a symbolic gesture to demonstrate to Scots that the Olympics would be a UK rather than English sporting event.